As described in Panel 12, the alumni of the Maronite college began opening and formalizing schools in Lebanon and beyond prior to the Lebanese Synod of 1736 (Panel 14). A series of significant educational institutions began to emerge in Mount Lebanon, foremost among these was ʿAyn Warqā (1789). The latter quickly became the most prestigious Maronite institution of its time (Panel 12). This pioneering school laid the groundwork for subsequent institutions transformed from monasteries to schools, such as Mār Yūḥannā Mārūn Kfarḥay (1812), Mār Marūn in al-Rūmiyya – al-Qulayʿāt (1817), Sarba (1827), Mār ʿAbdā – Harhiryā al-Qaṭṭīn in Kisrawān (1831), and Mār Sarkīs wa Bākūs in Rayfūn (1832), among others, all of which adhered to the curricular framework established by ʿAyn Warqā (Khalīl, 2020).

Building on the foundation of these early schools, by the 1840s, according to Harik (1968, as cited in Harris, 2012), “the Maronite Church had five schools teaching advanced subjects, twenty-seven smaller schools, and eight monasteries conducting classes for villagers.” Harris (2012) suggests that “perhaps one thousand males passed through the network in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, enough to unsettle the existing order.”

As a result, the Maronite Church, supported by a corps of educated clerics, along with a large group of monks and parish priests who sharpened the identity of the Maronite people, strengthened its temporal influence at the start of the 19th century (Harris, 2012). This enabled the church leadership to play a key role in further shaping the political views of the peasants, guiding them toward greater political awareness (Khalaf, 1979) and facilitating their emancipation from the lingering remnants of the feudal system (Antonius, 1938).

In the decades that followed, other notable schools emerged during the 19th and early 20th centuries, including al-Qiddīs Yūsuf in Qurnat Shehwān (1844), al-Maḥabba in ʿAramun (1867), Madrasa al-Ḥikmah (1875), and Mār Luwīs Ghazīr (1880), among many others. Furthermore, schools such as Mār Antūniyūs Quzḥayā in the Qadisha Valley, Sayyidat Mayfūq in Mayfūq (1746), Dayr al-Qalʿa in Bayt Mirī, and Dayr Mār Isḥāyā in Brummānā contributed to the growing network of Maronite educational institutions. Other schools in Baabda, Mtein, Machmoucheh, and Louaize further strengthened this educational expansion.

Following the model of earlier institutions like ʿAyn Warqā, the curriculum in these schools typically started with basic literacy in Arabic and Syriac, along with religious and liturgical instruction. As students progressed, their studies expanded to include more complex subjects, such as Syriac and Arabic grammar, singing, rhetoric, poetry, philosophy, accounting, astrology, geometry, and law. This comprehensive curriculum, modeled after that of the Maronite College of Rome, not only fostered intellectual development but also produced future generations of scholars, leaders, and entrepreneurs.

Significantly, the educational movement spearheaded by the Maronite Church had a wide-reaching effect, encouraging various other communities—Oriental Syriac, Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim—to establish their own schools across Lebanese territories. This proliferation contributed to a diverse and rich educational landscape in the region.

Against this backdrop of local educational development, when missionaries arrived, they found existing educational institutions among local Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities, though the approaches and pedagogical methods were traditional (Davie, 2016). They proceeded to establish their own schools, promoting them as 'modern,' and argued that anyone wishing to keep pace with the times and its advancements must enroll in these institutions (Davie, 2016).

The spread of missionary schools was facilitated by privileges granted through various Capitulation treaties with European empires, which allowed foreign powers to protect their subjects' vital rights, such as commerce, travel, and personal and religious freedoms. Consequently, missionary schools established by French, Italian, Anglo-Saxon, Russian, German, Swiss, Austrian, and Danish communities emerged in cities and towns across Lebanon. This trend culminated in the founding of key institutions, such as the Syrian Protestant College (later the American University of Beirut) in 1866 and the Université Saint-Joseph in 1875, further solidifying Lebanon’s position as a center for education in the region (Le Thomas, 2012).

In parallel, secular education gained prominence, particularly with the establishment of al-madrasat al-waṭaniyya in 1863 by Buṭrus al-Bustānī, a former student of ʿAyn Warqā (Khalil, 2020), and the opening of the école de la Mission laїque française in 1909 (Moeller, 2012).

Simultaneously, across the broader Eastern Ottoman world, educational institutions such as Al-Azhar University in Cairo and the Najaf religious university in Iraq flourished. In Lebanon, with the exception of the Shiites and, to a lesser extent, the Druze, all religious communities had established their own schools or benefited from missionary schools by the 1870s. Among the Sunnis, key institutions like al-Maqāṣid al-Khayrīyah al-Islāmīyah (1878), Madrasat al-Sulṭāniyya (1883), and the Islamic Scientific College (formerly the Ottoman School), which was founded in 1895 through the collaboration of Sheikh Aḥmad ʿAbbās al-Azhari and Sheikh ʿAbd al-Qādir Muṣṭafā Qabānī, became integral parts of Beirut’s educational landscape (Khalil, 2020; Imad, 2012).

During this period, the Ottoman government introduced state-run schools through the Tanẓīmāt reforms (1780–1914). However, despite the enactment of the 1869 Ottoman Public Education Act, these schools—often teaching in Turkish—were met with resistance due to the language barrier and their limited availability outside urban centers (N., 2013). Consequently, many families opted for private schools, often run by religious communities or foreign missionaries, which offered curricula better aligned with local and Western educational preferences (Al-Shamat, 2009).

This shift contributed to the growing dominance of private education in the region.
In addition to the expansion of general education, attention was also given to the education of girls, as local institutions adopted the belief that girls must be educated because they are the first educators of their children, and their education is fundamental to societal progress (Hauser, 2012). Sources indicate that prior to the 1860s, there were four girls' schools in Beirut, but by 1869, 23 girls' schools had been identified—an impressive figure compared to 52 boys' schools, with a combined total of 5,150 pupils, equivalent to about 6 percent of the total population at the time (Al-Shamat, 2009).

Interestingly, Davie (2016) observed that “Beirut, as the main metropolis in the 19th century, experienced four competing forces vying for control of the city’s educational culture: traditional religious schools, local communities’ ‘modern’ schools, Western powers through their missionary institutions, and, finally, the Ottoman Empire through its Tanẓīmāt institutions.” Although the foreign schools had different agendas and advertised their education as ‘modern,’ they “were socially and politically very conservative... [They] scrupulously avoided introducing revolutionary or progressive ideals such as French laïcité or egalitarian citizenship... political modernity à l'occidentale was not to be exported to the Levant” (Davie, 2016). Despite these shortcomings, Beirut evolved into a cosmopolitan and religiously pluralistic environment. It fostered Islamic, Catholic, Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Protestant missionary, and laïque educational ventures, which collectively contributed to the emergence of multiple modernities. These modernities intersected and coexisted in the same civic space, creating a vibrant intellectual and cultural dynamism (Collins, 2017).

The book Ḥaṣr al-Lithām mentioned that in 1895, around 330 schools were counted in Lebanon (Al-Abṭaḥ, 2016). Despite the fact that the missionary schools were perceived as instruments of soft imperialist diplomacy with ulterior motives such as the “destruction of the local culture” (Ozturk, M., & Mrad, 2021) or "conquête pacifique par l’école" [peaceful conquest through education] (Khaïrallah, 1912), and the Ottoman schools emphasized promoting authoritarianism, loyalty towards the state and the sultan, and the Turkish language (Deguilhem, 2005), they, together with the efforts of local communities, enabled the country to attain the highest literacy rate in the Arab world by the end of the 19th century.

The founding of the Maronite College of Rome in 1584 initiated a series of developments that significantly influenced Lebanon and the broader region. The Maronite Church continued these efforts, catalyzing profound changes in both educational and intellectual spheres. This trajectory laid the foundation for the Nahḍa, the Arab cultural renaissance of the 19th century, which fostered the revival of the Arabic language, literature, and intellectual thought—areas in which Maronite and other Lebanese scholars exerted admirable efforts. The influence of this dynamism extended beyond Lebanon, with the Lebanese diaspora serving as a dynamic conduit for the dissemination of these ideas internationally. Notably, the emergence of Ṣaḥāfat al-Mahjar (Diasporic Journalism) and Adab al-Mahjar (Diasporic Literature) became integral components of the Lebanese intellectual legacy, shaping cultural landscapes in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.

Photos Credits

Fig. 15.1: College of ʿAyn Warqā (1789). USEK Library Archives.
Fig. 15.2: Jullien, M. (1893). Les moines et les couvents maronites. Les missions catholiques, 25, 426.
Fig. 15.3: The Golden Book of Sagesse School (1926). Beirut: Qozma Press.
Fig. 15.4: Rami, J. (2004). 120 years of the history of Saint-Joseph School in Qornet Chehwan 1884–2004 (in Arabic). St. Joseph School Publications.

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